Hooked: Underground Dilettante Goes to LucasArts’ GDC Party

It’s been, oh, about seven years since your correspondent has been to a tech party as extravagant as last night’s LucasArts recruiting shindig. Is this a story? Extravagant tech parties popping up everywhere? Maybe not, but what was remarkable was how far a company this great apparently has to go to recruit badass talent.

I knew we were in trouble when we boarded a party bus whose door was flanked by two Imperial Stormtroopers wielding T-21 rifles. We — the fauxhawked, the black-blazered, the vintage tee-shirted — filed between them and boarded for the Presidio. We were each handed Lucas pocketknives and raffle tickets for our arduous journey to the LucasArts/LucasFilm/ILM campus.

The bus ride was a blur of schmoozing and cell phone games. Demetri Detsaridis of Massively Mobile was doublefisting handsets. He showed me new launch Hip Hop Immortals, and I made a pathetic $9 for my rhyming and breaking skills before we got to Lombard street.

President Jim Ward welcomed us to the Arts and Crafts facility, although he excused himself early, saying, “I’m too old for all this partying.” (Too old…or maybe just too content in one of the best jobs in the world?) Head of Product Development Peter Hirschman told us how great it was to work on games with Darth Vader or Indiana Jones in them. (Well, duh. Sign me up, okay? And I’d like 90k and an office overlooking the Palace of Fine Arts.)

LucasRecruiters took us on a tour of campus. A thousand cell phone cameras got up close and personal with the Yoda Fountain, George’s own book and movie poster collection, and some great highlights from the model shop. Kellam Eanes of Glu Mobile set off a flurry of Princess Leia-with-R2D2 posing among the three or four women on the adventure.

After a convenient stop-off in the gift shop, we hit the swank cafeteria for an open bar, chicken wings and potato salad table, DJ and schmoozing. I hung out with Paul Wrider and some other folks from LucasArts Team 3, which works on original IP rather than Star Wars retreads.

Chewbacca, Han and Leia, Boba Fett and friends worked the floor, a Chinese New Year dragon troupe showed up with drummers and dancers, and a half dozen folks won limited edition action figures in the raffle. Your correspondent snagged a 501st Legion Stormtrooper figure (and is taking offers.) David Beebe of Tilted Mill Entertainment scored an even better prize — a George Lucas action figure. I can see the action now:

Lionhead Studios lead programmer (and charming Brit) Matthew Wiggins had a better career suggestion: try working at a more low-profile company for awhile. (Like Microsoft!)

Bottom line: this party was totally unlike other GDC parties. It was fun, I guess, but weird. Everyone was talking about LucasArts, rather than about themselves, their projects, or what session about physics in next-gen game consoles they were attending tomorrow. Well done, LucasPeople. You got us all hooked. How can we go back to our crappy jobs now?

Underground DilettanteSarah Lefton has changed careers more times that you’ve changed your underwear this week, but has kept up a strong motif of abject dorkiness. Somewhere between helping start a half-dozen Internet companies, designing some infamous t-shirts, running a Jewish summer camp and teaching web design to thousands of starry-eyed career changers, she officially Saw It All. Riding her trusty, rusty Vespa from geeky event to event, you can count on her to deliver the straight dope about the bad belly dancing, great passed hors d’ouevres and adorable nerds that keep the San Francisco underbelly worth tickling. (Mmm, underbelly.)